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My first book with Harlequin is published today—The Summer They Never Forgotis available in print and e-book from wherever Harlequin series books are sold. It’s a deeply emotional, heart-warming story of rekindled love.

Sometime last century I submitted my first romance to Harlequin Mills & Boon in London. Needless to say it was promptly rejected but later efforts had encouraging replies. I got sidetracked into other writing ventures but never gave up the dream to be published by Harlequin. So I was thrilled when the manuscript for The Summer They Never Forgot was accepted. And can I say that working with the editors at the London office is an absolute pleasure! Well worth the long wait…

My kitty Ivy seems to be urging me to unpack the books and give her the box!

Waiting to see what cover the publisher gives your book can be a tense moment for an author. How did the cover designer interpret my characters? Did they get my setting right? How does the title look on the page?

I’m pleased to report the Harlequin designers got everything right! The water setting, the dock where some pivotal scenes are played out, the carefree summer atmosphere. Most important, the heroine and hero, Sandy and Ben, fit my mental image of them. “He’s hot!” was my daughter’s reaction to Ben—you can’t get much better than that.

Oh, and I’m a big sucker for pink on covers and I love the pink on the Harlequin Romance covers.

The Mills & Boon hardcover and e-book cover in the UK

As this is my first book for Harlequin, I didn’t realize there would be several other covers for the book.

The Mills & Boon Sweet e-book cover in Australia

And I like them too!

Then there are paperback covers for two-in-one editions.

The Australian mass market paperback Mills & Boon Sweet with Sophie Pemberton’s Heiress on the Run

I spoke to the publisher, Pamela Clark, who is one of the doyennes of cooking in Australia, about this cake. She advised me to follow the recipe exactly, use the correct size cake pan, not to be tempted to use a higher oven temperature, and to leave the cake in the oven for the full hour.

Her advice was spot on because the cake has turned out perfectly every time I’ve baked it!

2 Beat butter, rind and caster sugar in medium bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in sour cream and sifted flours, in two batches. Spread mixture into pan; bake 15 minutes.

NOTE Australian standard measuring cups are used in this recipe. An Australian standard measuring cup is 250ml, an American one is 240ml so there isn’t much difference in a recipe like this.

One Australian metric tablespoon holds 20mls; a tablespoon in the US, the UK and New Zealand holds 15mls.

100 grams is approximately 4 oz

170 degrees C oven heat is approximately 340 degrees F

• You can use light brown sugar instead of demerara sugar • Caster sugar is also known as superfine sugar • Regular rather than light sour cream works best • Plain flour is also known as all-purpose flour • Self-raising flour can be made by mixing 1 cup of plain/all-purpose flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder • Baking paper is also known as parchment paper • A metric sized 23-cm square cake pan is equivalent to a 9-inch square pan.

For an excellent resource in converting baking measures and ingredients from other countries, visit Joy of Baking.

MY NEW RELEASE ON SALE!

Reinventing Rose is an e-book special at Amazon for the bargain price of just $US0.99 until May 31.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. Her new release is the contemporary women’s fiction (aka chicklit!) Reinventing Rose, where the characters don’t get much of a chance to eat cake let alone bake it…

My teenage daughter foolishly left her soft guitar case open on the floor in our hallway. Before long, her tortoiseshell kitty, Tabitha, came across it. With a few circles and kneading of paws she took possession, purring loudly at the pleasure of such a find.

Tabitha makes the discovery

It wasn’t long before Ancient Albert, our precious nearly twenty-two-year-old boy ambled past on his aged and unsteady legs. Tabby hissed defensively, as thirteen-year-old torties are prone to do, but to no avail. Soon there were two cats in the guitar case. There wasn’t a lot of room for two cats to sleep comfortably.

Not quite enough room for two cats

The inevitable happened—Albert evicted Tabitha and had it all to himself. I’ve noticed my female cats inevitably concede to the males when it comes to possession of comfy sleeping spots and desirable food.

Albert has the guitar case all to himself

Eventually Tabby gracefully admitted defeat gracefully and went and found herself a box of paper—printouts of my work-in-progress.

Tabby squeezes into a box

Albert enjoyed sole possession of the guitar case until he wandered off and found himself an even better bed—my daughter’s large velvet-lined guitar case. Much more spacious and comfortable!

Albert finds himself an even better guitar case

When daughter complained about cat fur in her guitar case did I have pity on her? A little. I know I should have removed the kitties, rather than laughing and taking snaps with my iPhone. But since then neither I—nor the cats—have noticed any guitar cases left lying around the house!

MY NEW RELEASE ON SALE!

Reinventing Rose is on special at Amazon for just $US0.99 from 1 through 5 May, 2013 as part of the Book Lovers Buffet. There are loads of other wonderful books across all romance genres on sale, too.

What is it about writers and chocolate? With a name like Kandy, I was predestined to have a sweet tooth, and chocolate is my favorite sweet treat by far. But I don’t have to look far among my author colleagues to find an abundance of writerly chocoholics.

Is there a link between creativity and chocolate consumption? It’s said eating chocolate releases endorphins—feel good hormones—in the brain, so that might help kick along the creative process. Chocolate is also said to affect serotonin levels in the brain, which could help relieve stress (deadlines?) and depression (writer’s block and deadlines?)

Who knows? I’m not really looking for an explanation—more likely an excuse for the scatterings of chocolate wrappers around my desk!

Lindt chocolatiers’ taste experiments – I loved the strawberry and pistachio the best from this delectable array

Being a self-confessed chocoholic, I didn’t hesitate to accept an invitation to the “chocolate carpet” launch of the Lindt Chocolate Café concept at the site of the original Martin Place site in the heart of the city of Sydney, Australia.

Okay, so the carpet was actually red, not chocolate, but the second my “plus one” daughter and I got inside we were surrounded by chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!

Lindt Master Chocolatiers at the Maître Station

I’ve visited the Lindt Café before (what self-respecting Sydney chocoholic hasn’t!) but now it looks quite different. The most prominent new feature is the Maître Station where you can watch the Lindt Master Chocolatiers at work creating their delectable creations. The scent of so much chocolate so close is intoxicating!

The Mocha Macchiato were a hit

There’s also the Chocolate Tap, an outsized metal tap from which Lindt Chocolate copiously flows. I nearly swooned! On the launch night, the baristas made use of the chocolate tap to create potent chocolate shots, as well as Mocha Macchiato comprising dark chocolate, milk and espresso coffee topped with a chocolate shard.

Highlights of the evening? Meeting Lindt Australia’s charming Swiss-born Master Chocolatier, Thomas Schnetzler; taste-testing experimental new chocolates; and eating the best-ever macarons, which Lindt calls délice. I also watched, amazed, as a fellow guest emptied out some of the abundant displays of Lindor Balls to fill a bucket to take home. Who could blame him!

We took home lots of treats

We went home with a goodie bag which kept the Lindt experience going for several days afterwards. I didn’t need to be persuaded to “Surrender to Indulgence”!

Oh, and my beautiful university student daughter had her photo taken for a foodie blog and the Sunday newspaper social pages—she was beyond thrilled!

Visit the Lindt Chocolate Café, 53 Martin Place, Sydney, NSW, 2000. (What a great place for a writers’ meeting!)

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. Her new release is the contemporary women’s fiction (aka chicklit!) Reinventing Rose, where the main character indulges in chocolate at the merest hint of feeling down!

I don’t know when “chicklit” became a no-no word. “Contemporary women’s fiction” is now the description of choice for contemporary, sometimes humorous novels about a young (or not-so-young) woman’s journey to that may or may not include romance but usually includes friendship, family and career.

I’m putting my hand up to say I love reading chicklit, however you label it. And I like writing it, too!

My new release Reinventing Rose falls under the chicklit banner. When 28-year-old Californian schoolteacher Rose Butler flies to Sydney, Australia, to meet an internet lover, the reunion doesn’t go quite to plan. Rose finds herself alone in a foreign country, too embarrassed to tell the folks back home what happened. Rose decides to stay and reinvent herself with a total “me makeover.”

Three new female roommates turn out to be the perfect people to aid and abet her—one is a beauty editor on a womens magazine with access to all sorts of image-changing freebies. But Rose discovers real change doesn’t come from new hair and makeup. As she throws herself headlong into her new life, she gets tripped up by a painful family secret and unresolved problems from her past. She’s forced to question her beliefs about love and loyalty, old mistakes and new choices, and the bonds of both family and friendship.

3QUICK QUESTIONS

Q. You’re published in romance—why write womens fiction/chicklit?

A. I love writing romance where the focus is on two people falling in love against the odds. But I also like writing about the other aspects of my characters’ lives—family, friends, career challenges—and womens fiction gives me that opportunity. I enjoyed creating the secondary characters of Sasha, Carla and Kelly in Reinventing Rose. Female friendship is so important in my life—and I give Rose three amazing new friends. Of course Rose meets men, the sexy, bad-boy photographer Elliot and the handsome doctor Luke. Which of those gorgeous guys will she end up with?

Q. Doesn’t chicklit concentrate on shoes and shopping?

A. There’s a fun pair of shoes in Reinventing Rose but wearing them leads Rose somewhere she really shouldn’t have gone! Chicklit also deals with deeper issues and as Rose’s story unfurls she experiences them, too—eating disorders, divorce, miscarriage are all touched on. The tone is sassy but the subject matter is sometimes serious.

Q. What inspired you to write Reinventing Rose?

A. When I was working as an editor in womens magazines, I particularly enjoyed working on reader makeovers—coordinating with hairdressers, makeup artists, fashion stylists and photographers to transform everyday women into their look-best selves. I had the idea for a chick-lit type story about a young woman who decides a makeover will solve all her problems. Of course it doesn’t, and Rose has quite a journey before she realizes that. I had such fun taking Rose into the studio for her makeover—a location so familiar to me.

P.S. There aren’t any dogs in Reinventing Rose—there was a gorgeous Border Collie in an earlier version but the chapter he appeared in was slashed in the editing process. There are two cats, though, a tuxedo kitty named Socks who stays off-stage but very much in the heroine Rose’s thoughts, and a beautiful brown Burmese named Nina who is modeled on one of my own cats (sadly departed.)

Do you have a food you loathe? Until quite recently my reply would have included rhubarb. Sharp, stringy, nasty tasting stuff (or that’s what I used to think!)

When I was a kid my grandmother tried to trick me into eating it set in red jelly (Jello). I wasn’t fooled. Rhubarb stayed on my food-hate list for years and years. Then we bought our farm and inherited two magnificent rhubarb plants. For years visitors admired them; for years I replied, “I hate the stuff.” For years my husband said, “I like it.” But I still didn’t harvest it or cook with it. Poor husband! (Not that he isn’t a good cook himself, but only if he has a recipe to follow.)

Would you believe this rhubarb plant dies down to nothing in the winter?

Then a writer friend started to bring a rhubarb cake with her when she visited. It tasted so good! Maybe, just maybe I should try cooking my own rhubarb from my own rhubarb plants?

So I harvested—gingerly, as those big leaves are poisonous. And stewed some with sugar until it was way too mushy. Not just my husband, but also my daughter loved it. They pleaded for more. So I tried again. This time no water, just sugar and a piece of vanilla bean, and a not-so-long cooking time. Success!

Freshly picked from the garden

It’s become the family’s second-favorite breakfast treat, served with yogurt. (The first favorite is the plums from our ancient tree, but they’re only around in January in the Down Under summer.) Rhubarb is a source of vitamins, anti-oxidants and dietary fibre so that’s all good.

One of these rhubarb plants flourishes all year round. The second one is gone at the first hint of frost, but emerges in spring as beautiful ruby-red sprouts pushing up from the ground and rapidly unfurling into the so-valued stalks and the huge leaves. The experts say not to let the white flowers bloom as they take nourishment away from the stalks, but sometimes I let them bloom, and it doesn’t seem to diminish the quality of the stalks.

I know spring is here when the rhubarb plant starts to sprout

And me? Did I fall in love with my rhubarb? Not really. I like it, but I don’t love it like my family does. How I enjoy it is in muffins where the slight tartness of the rhubarb puts a pleasing edge to the sweetness of the muffin. I make my favorite muffin recipe, put half the muffin mixture in the muffin tin hole, add a teaspoon of the rhubarb-stewed-with-vanilla, cover with the rest of the mixture and top with more rhubarb and a teaspoon of brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon. The streusel topping becomes all crunchy and the caramelized fruit juice drips down into the muffin. Now that’s the way I love to eat rhubarb!

Rhubarb streusel muffins just out of the oven

And my writer friend who brings me the marvelous rhubarb cakes? Two springs past, I dug up some of the new-growth rhizome to take home with her. She now also has a flourishing rhubarb plant—and when she brings me cake, it’s made with “my” rhubarb, transplanted and thriving in her garden.

The jacarandas are in full, glorious bloom in my part of the world. These beautiful trees obviously love conditions Down Under—they originally hail from Brazil. Everywhere you look, the city landscape is punctuated by splashes of exquisite, purple-blue. It gives me such pleasure to admire them. I’m not alone—jacaranda walking tours and view-from-Sydney-harbor boat tours are booked out this time of year.

Jacaranda in bloom–a breathtaking sight

They say the reason there are so many jacarandas in Sydney is because last century, maternity hospitals gave mothers a jacaranda sapling to take home with their newborn babies. It’s probably an urban myth, but what a nice one!

So beautiful!

The other aspect of jacaranda-time is that it coincides with university exams—the blossom is not so welcome by students running out of time to study.

Some people hate the mess the fallen flowers make–I say relax and enjoy the fleeting beauty (but be careful as they’re slippery when wet)

Jacaranda blue just happens to be my very favorite color in a favorites range dominated by the blue-indigo-violet end of the color spectrum. Most of the clothes I wear are in shades of navy, blue, lavender, purple and aqua. I long ago gave up experimenting with the red-orange-yellow end of the spectrum—pinks and oranges are just not me. I appreciate their beauty—they’re just not shades I want to surround myself with.

What a narrow band of colors I choose my clothes from…

Truth is, I just don’t feel comfortable outside my color comfort zone. And I know I’m not alone. Many people seem to express a strong preference for one set of colors over another. One of my friends laughs when she sees the blue-dominant hues of the clothes hanging in my closet—her collection of clothes is basically red, white and black. She wouldn’t be caught dead in my beloved purple.

I admired these hydrangeas in a neighbor’s garden

I’m the same in the garden—I adore agapanthus, hydrangea, wisteria, lilac, pansies and blue and purple irises—though pink is a favorite too. Yes, my garden is dominated by flowers in pinks and purples and all shades in-between, highlighted with splashes of white, orange and yellow. The exception? The deep glory of scarlet and crimson roses, judiciously placed.

Louisiana iris in a pot on my balcony

Why do we have such strong preferences for particular colors? According to Psychology Today: “Color preferences are deeply rooted emotional responses that seem to lack any rational basis, yet the powerful influence of color rules our choices in everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the cars we buy.”

The theory goes that if we experience pleasure linked to a particular color—possibly a happy childhood picnic under a jacaranda tree, who knows?—we’ll gravitate toward a similar color in the future. Perhaps in my case, my preference is because “my” colors suit my hair and eye coloring—and my mother, being a stylish person, dressed me in those colors.

Clematis in a favorite part of my spring garden

Regardless of the colors I like for myself, I’m good at helping others choose the shades that best flatter them—usually nothing like what I wear. (I had lots of practice organizing makeovers in my days as a magazine fashion editor).

Even the horses get dressed in purple at my place

I love dressing the characters in my novels—it’s kind of like the fun I used to have dressing my dolls when I was a kid. Part of choosing my characters’ clothes is making sure the colors suit both their hair, eyes and skin tone but also their personalities. One of my favorite heroines to dress, Serena in Home Is Where the Bark Is, starts the book hiding out in shapeless, colorless clothes and Birkenstocks, she ends it in sassy, sexy black and sky high stilettos with a slash of scarlet lipstick.

I’m giving the last word on color to this recent visitor to my garden—an Australian lorikeet feasting on the nectar of flowers of a flame tree (also in bloom at this time). What a color clash! Yet nature makes it work so beautifully.

Australian rainbow lorikeet feasting on the flowers of an Illawarra flame tree that overhangs my garden